The Courage to be Creative

I dare to follow my creative urges, and then put my art out there. You can, too. Science says.

“Creativity takes courage,” the French artist Henri Matisse once said. I assume he meant the courage not only to give something a try — he was a painter, draftsman and sculptor — but to fail miserably, and even to hang your embarrassing work on the wall or — ack! — put it out there for the world to deride.

So here goes.

When it comes to drawing and painting, I’ve long thought I’m a pretty good writer. So I stopped drawing and painting decades ago and put my creative energy full-time into writing and, honestly, got a little too wrapped up in managing and other corporate stuff.

But the urge to paint never died, and with a little more time on my hands lately, I’ve taken it up again. Specifically, I’m painting abstracts, which I’ve never done before, and which is far more daunting than I imagined, and which has tapped into a creative streak I’d long suppressed. The process of creating each painting is at once humbling and instructive, and always immensely satisfying. I wish I’d begun years ago.

So I’m here to tell you that if you have a creative passion burning inside you, now is the time to pursue it. Science says so, too. Whether you wish to write, paint, sculpt, craft finger puppets or pursue any other creative endeavor, pursuing a passion is among the best ways to find your sense of purpose, which studies…